US OPEN

August 30, 2003

Dave Carey

Dodo Cheney

Elaine Mason

Gardnar Mulloy

ELAINE MASON: No, Gardnar got that serve. Dodo hit the serve.

DODO CHENEY: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He was the first one to serve underhand to me. I dinked it back.

ELAINE MASON: I didn't know that.

DODO CHENEY: Later, when I served to him. I gave him an underhanded flip-flop. He got it back and passed it right down between us. Right, Gardnar?

GARDNAR MULLOY: Why are we talking about one silly shot?

DODO CHENEY: He didn't get it.

GARDNAR MULLOY: I guess I'll never live it down.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Before they built the Ashe stadium. I don't know what year it was. I was playing doubles with Pancho Gonzalez.

GARDNAR MULLOY: 1952.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Frank Sedgman.

DODO CHENEY: He knows how to get the good partners, doesn't he? That's the way to win doubles, get a good partner.

DODO CHENEY: Oh, now wait a minute. I can't think back that long ago (laughing). Last time?

DODO CHENEY: Oh, come on. Ask me something easy (laughing). I can't remember.

ELAINE MASON: No, just 15 minutes ago.

DAVE CAREY: No, I didn't start playing tennis until I was 65.

DAVE CAREY: Well, I was retired. I knew how to play. For the first time, I had time to play. Tennis, you need someone to play with. You can go out and play golf at 6 in the morning and get nine holes in and go to work by yourself. But tennis, you need people to play with you.

DODO CHENEY: You always have a back door, a garage to hit against, though.

DAVE CAREY: Sure.

DODO CHENEY: But it's boring.

GARDNAR MULLOY: I don't know. We were No. 1 in the United States for 10 years. We didn't lose to an American team for 10 years. But I guess our toughest was Sedgman and McGregor. Can't be any better than they are.

DAVE CAREY: Tomorrow.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Yeah, this is a very small tournament (laughter). We get up there on grass where you used to play barefooted.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Do I what?

GARDNAR MULLOY: Yeah, I write to Mr. Gorringe and ask for a wildcard. Every year he sends back, "He'll make it next year." Usually he says, "I'm sorry, but entry's are closed. You filed your entry too late."

GARDNAR MULLOY: I play three or four times a week.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Fisher Island. I'm the tennis director emeritus. I go around, look important and settle squabbles.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Favorite player nowadays?

GARDNAR MULLOY: Bill Tilden.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Well, Agassi and Sampras and Boris Becker and Jim Courier play Fisher Island usually before the former Lipton tournament. I hit with them a little bit. I make them hit with me because I'm the tennis director emeritus. If they don't hit with me, I don't give them a court. Then I go around telling everybody that I hit with these big shots.

ELAINE MASON: Very good.

DAVE CAREY: I'd like to add one thing. As I said, I started playing at 65. All these people are tennis legends.

ELAINE MASON: Not me.

DAVE CAREY: It's really an honor for me to be able to play with them competitively and as friends. The thing that I'm thinking about today, 30 years ago, if you had a hip replacement or if you had a bypass surgery, you were an invalid for life. Today, with modern medicine, we're all playing with all these different things. I've had two hips put in. I couldn't play if I hadn't had these hips put in. We've got guys playing in the seniors, in the 85s or 75s with two knee replacements, five bypass. You name it. They're all more healthy than they were before. It's a totally new conception.

DODO CHENEY: Well-stated.

DAVE CAREY: In another 10 years we're gonna have people normally living 105, 110. What people are worried about now is, "Are there enough younger people to support these older guys on their social security?" (Laughter). I mean, this is serious.

GARDNAR MULLOY: I only had my tonsils out.

GARDNAR MULLOY: Forest Hills?

GARDNAR MULLOY: Playing Ken Rosewall in the semifinals, beaten Vic Seixas in the quarters.

GARDNAR MULLOY: 1952, before you were born. He had me 4-2 in the fifth and I lucked out on him.

DODO CHENEY: They were all wonderful memories. Everything in my life that's been really wonderful has been because of tennis. All right, now to get back to your question, my most memorable match...

GARDNAR MULLOY: Is today.

DODO CHENEY: (Laughing). Well said. I think the one -- I'll specify and say the one that I was most proud of was the year I beat the champion, Alice Marble. I beat her in the quarterfinals.

DODO CHENEY: But she had been sick (laughing). But I did win that match. That's my most memorable.

DODO CHENEY: Oh, yes. That's a long, long story. But in Los Angeles, one day a year, they have what they call Youth versus Experience. So they get all these 70, 80s players and 60, 70, 80 seniors to play against these kids. This was about -- at least 10 or so years ago. I believe Venus was probably nine or 10 years old. I was... well, I was about 70. I was still playing pretty well. So they pitted me against Serena -- I mean against Venus. We were scheduled to play on the center court. Just before we were going out, someone came to me and pointed out and said, "That's your opponent, Dodo, standing over there. That's Venus Williams. That's who you're gonna play." I looked at her. I looked at her feet. I swear, she had size nine shoes. She was tall. We went out on the court. I don't think I won -- I might have won a couple of games, maybe. But she was so powerful and even at that young age, and everybody who was watching the match said, "That girl is going places." Not meet meaning me, but... (Laughter).

ELAINE MASON: I am.

ELAINE MASON: Early in the morning. Early in the morning, yes, definitely. Uh-hmm.

ELAINE MASON: Probably three times a week, yeah. Three or four, yeah. But...